November 2, 2010

UK and France agree to joint nuclear testing
treaty

The two leaders will announce plans for
French planes to use British refuelling aircraft

The UK and France are to
sign treaties agreeing to military cooperation including testing of
nuclear warheads.

The plans will see one centre set up in the UK to develop
technology and another in France to carry out testing.
Prime Minister David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy
will also outline plans, at a London summit, for a joint army
expeditionary force.
Downing Street called the measures "practical", but Labour
said they left "big questions" over the UK's defences.

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A Downing Street spokesman said: "This
summit marks a deepening of the UK-France bilateral relationship. Ours
is now a strategic partnership tackling together the biggest challenges
facing our two countries."

The summit comes two weeks after the UK government announced
cuts to its armed forces, in the first strategic defence review since
1998, as part of savings aimed at reducing the country's budget deficit.
Under the plans £750m will be saved over four years on the
Trident nuclear missile system by cutting the number of warheads.
Harrier jump jets, the Navy's flagship HMS Ark Royal and
planned Nimrod spy planes will also be axed, but two new aircraft
carriers were spared.

“Start Quote

This does not affect our special
relationship with the United States. It gives us economies of scale and
helps us to welcome France back fully into Nato”

End QuoteLiam FoxDefence Secretary

Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy are to
sign two treaties - one on greater general military co-operation and
the other on nuclear weapons.

Speaking about greater military co-operation, Defence
Secretary Liam Fox said there had been a "great deal of hysteria" in the
media about the idea of British troops coming under French command.
He said: "Under the existing Nato system our troops could
come under Turkish or Polish command. There's nothing new about that.
"This does not affect our special relationship with the
United States. It gives us economies of scale and helps us to welcome
France back fully into Nato."
Asked whether there might be a situation in the future,
during a political crisis in which Britain and France did "not see eye
to eye", when British planes were dependent on a French aircraft
carrier, he said: "That's very unlikely to happen."
"This is not about interdependence. It's about
interoperability," he added.Operational veto
The nuclear treaty will establish a centre in the UK to
develop technology and another one in France to carry out the testing.
It is understood that each country will still control its own
warheads, and that nuclear secrets will not be shared.
The other treaty will allow the setting up of a "combined
joint expeditionary force", thought to involve a brigade of about 5,000
soldiers from each side.
Each country will retain a veto for each operation, which
will operate under one military commander to be chosen at the time.
The UK and France have also agreed to keep at least one
aircraft carrier at sea between them at any one time.
Each will be able to use the other's carrier in some form,
certainly for training and possibly operations.
Meanwhile, France is to use British A400M fuelling aircraft
when there is spare capacity, with plans in place for common maintenance
and training.'Deepening ties'
Joint work on drones, mine counter-measures and satellite
communications is also proposed.
In a statement, the French presidency said the test centre in
Valduc, eastern France, would start operations in 2014.
The Valduc laboratory would work with a French-British
research centre based in Aldermaston, Berkshire, it added.

“Start Quote

I think it will be impossible to
jointly develop a new nuclear weapons system without sharing nuclear
secrets”

Together the facilities would
involve "several dozen" French and British experts and cost both
countries several million euros.

It said scientists from both countries would be able to
ensure the "viability, safety and security in the long term of our
nuclear arsenals".
Mr Cameron told MPs on Monday: "I do seriously believe that
this link-up with the French over defence is in the long term interests
of both our countries.
"And to those who worry that this might in some way lead
to... European armies, that is not the point. The point is to enhance
sovereign capability by two like-minded countries being able to work
together."
The UK's shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said: "I support
the government's emphasis on international co-operation, taking forward
the good work of the last government.
"We share common threats with countries such as France, from
terrorism to privacy to cyber-attack. Deepening military ties is an
essential part of modern defence policy.
"Interdependence, however, is different from dependence, and
binding legal treaties pose some big questions for the government."
Mr Murphy also questioned whether the the UK was entering "an
era where we are reliant on our allies to fill in the gaps in the
government's defence policy".
Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services
Institute think tank, said Anglo-French military initiatives dated back
to Dunkirk and he said: "Both (countries) have got similar problems.
They have both got similar interests... and the fact is that if both
powers are determined to play a role in the world with military force
they are going to find ways of pooling their relatively common force
structures if they are going to have some effect."
Asked about hypothetical scenarios where France and Britain
disagreed politically, Professor Clarke said: "You can't rule them out
but they are not the most likely outcome. Most things that happen in the
world at the moment - in Afghanistan, in southern Europe, in relation
to instabilities in eastern Europe - are things that the British and
French do share common interests on."